SK Innovation now has 4.7 GWh capacity compared to the 315 MWh a year ago.This capacity is probably entirely for use by Kia.

There are new factories being built in Europe, China and the United States which will be used by other car makers.In particular the European factory will supply Mercedes new EQC.

But there has been no announcement of any further increase of the Seosan battery factory.I estimate that Kia will be able to build about 50,000 EV's a year, if most are the 64kWh option.So the total capacity for the N iro EV and new Soul EV will be about 50,000 for the next 3 years at least.

Because of the European emission laws Kia will be trying to sell 40,000 EVs in Europe each year.This leaves a fairly small quantity for the rest of the world.No wonder Kia feels confident that it can maintain high prices. High demand and low supply will continue for the indefinite future.

JejuSoul wrote:Thanks. Getting hold of the actual lawsuit is great. None of the major news organizations had bothered to go to the actual source for their material. They all just quote the press release. I had tried and failed to find the lawsuit at the United States International Trade Commission. You succeeded at the Delaware Court.

I follow the news and write about SK Innovation battery technology. I live in Korea and currently own two cars that contain SK batteries. A Hyundai Blueon Electric, and a Kia Soul EV. Reading this lawsuit make it sound like LG Chem has always been ahead of SK Innovation. Yet the Hyundai Blueon Electric was the first EV in Korea. The Kia Soul EV was the first EV to use NCM 622. And the Kia N iro EV is the first EV to include NCM 811 in its battery. The lawsuit twists the facts to claim that, because LG Chem has 30 years of experience making batteries for consumer electronics, it is has always been ahead in EV battery tech.

I don’t think the N iro EV quote mention is really important to this lawsuit. The motivation for this dispute is clearly Volkswagen.

LG Chem's lawsuit wrote:…LGC is informed and believes that many of the Former LGC Employees had worked specifically onproducts and technologies concerning Volkswagen automobiles, one of LGC’s key and emergingcustomers in the EV market, and its modular electric toolkit (known as the “MEB”)6 platform forelectric vehicles…

The codes for using Torque Pro can be found by clicking the link in the website icon under my user name on the left.

There is no actual link from Kia yet that shows the new 2020 Soul EV is using the same SK Innovation battery as the N iro EV.But I think it is a fairly safe assumption to make.I am fairly sure now that the new 2020 Soul EV does not use pure NCM811 chemistry.Instead by mixing NCM811 and NCM111 it creates a NCM622 equivalent mix.

In these 2 articles we hear that the first EV to use a pure NCM811 chemistry will be available in the 3rd quarter, and that the Hungarian battery plant will be the one to make only NCM811. Clearly it will be the Mercedes EQC that gets the new battery.

This is interesting because it is frequently stated that specialist copper foil for EV batteries will be a major bottleneck for mass production of batteries.The companies buying foil from KCFT are all the big players, Panasonic, LG Chem, Samsung SDI and SK innovation.

-Am looking at the sales figures for the Soul EV over the last 18 months.Interesting to see that the proportion going to Norway has greatly increased.At present almost 42% of all Soul EVs ever produced are in Norway.

There has been plenty of accusations made against the sales of the Kia Soul EV in Norway.It has often been stated that Kia is doing an 'emissions scam'.But as of January 2019 this 'loophole ceased to exist.

...from January 2019, sales of new cars in Norway are included in a broader EU calculation of the greenness of each manufacturer’s European-wide car fleets, a target the carmaker must meet to avoid large penalties...

Those who believed in the 'emissions scam' story need to answer: Why is Norway continuing to import so many Kia Soul EVs from the rest of Europe. ? See the latest stats for this here - https://elbilstatistikk.no/

----------------------------------------------

Here's my count of the original Soul EV sales. The new eSoul has a different VIN and I'll count separately.

Sales of the original Soul EV stopped in September 2018 in both South Korea and the USA. The new eSoul began selling in Korea in March 2019, it has yet to appear in the USA. The new eSoul is selling about 500 cars a month globally. The eN iro s selling about 1,500 cars a month globally.

JejuSoul wrote:....SK Innovation now has 4.7 GWh capacity in South Korea.I estimate that Kia will be able to build about 50,000 EV's a year, if most are the 64kWh option....

The above quote is a guess I made in April.At the moment Kia is producing about 50% of what I had guessed, based on the stated availability of the batteries..

The codes for using Torque Pro can be found by clicking the link in the website icon under my user name on the left.

The new eSoul is selling about 600 cars a month globally. The eN iro is selling about 1,600 cars a month globally. The original Soul EV sold an average of 700 cars a month during its 5 years of production.

Interestingly Canada is now on par with Norway as the top sales destination for the Soul EV.Whereas the US has none at all.